Ambassador Romoke Ayinde is the delectable woman behind popular Kayrom Lee gym and fitness centre, inside Obafemi Awolowo Stadium, (formerly Liberty Stadium), she has added yet another innovation to her business frontiers. She is into many things before now like farming, tailoring, catering, fitness mention it. In fact, she is one of the big entrepreneurs in Ibadan. But the latest from her stable is a Sports academy called ‘RACBAR’. It is an acronym from Racket, Ball, Aquatic and Ring.
The academy focuses on Racket Games such as Tennis, Badminton, Football, Volleyball, and Aquatic Sports, Swimming and Ring Sports, Boxing, Kick Boxing and so on. At the unveiling of the Academy, which took place at Ambassador Romoke Ayinde’s 360 Degree Innovation Centre, along Akala Way, Orita-Challenge, Ibadan, on Saturday 6th April, 2019, Mrs. Ayinde revealed that the idea behind RACBAR is not only to giving hope to the downtrodden, to identify and support and nurture children of the less privileged in the society to prominence in their respective undertaking through sporting activities. But also to discover talent, provide quality training and nurture them to the prominence with the proper discipline to make them be good ambassadors of the family, state and Nigeria as a whole.
The event, which incidentally coincided with annual World International Day of Sports Development, had in attendance important personalities like the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Saliu Akanmu Adetunji, Aje Ogungunniso 1; the Oyo State Commissioner for Youth and Sports, Hon. Yomi Oke; South/West Zonal Coordinator, Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports, Femi Ajao; the Director, Alliance Francaise, Ibadan, Nickolas Michelon and representative of one of the leading network providers, MTN, Bajo Onafuwa.
There were also in attendance publisher of Parrot Xtra Magazine, Mr Yinka Agboola; Chairman, Oyo State Amateur Boxing Association, Baron Akintunde Opaleye, and Chairman, Nigeria Boxing Board of Control (NBB of C), Oyo State chapter, Hon. Gbenga Opaleye.
The Founder of Kayrom Lee Fitness and Gym Centre also revealed that the Academy is involved in all sporting activities including classroom work and field practical, where its name RACBAR was derived from the acronym of (Racket games, Ball games, Aquatic sports and Ring sports).
Ambassador Ayinde in her observation noted that RACBAR Academy was designed with a blueprint and policy paper that will address issues of ‘age cheat’ and importance of ‘catching them young’ that have become a cog in the wheel of development of sports not only in Nigeria but also in Africa at large. She added that in order to address the issue of language barrier particularly in francophone countries and giving the pupils of RACBAR Academy opportunity to learn another major language the firm has entered into a partnership with French teaching school in Ibadan, the Alliance Francaise to teach the pupils a French language.
The multi-lingual woman also assured on the sustainability of the academy and development of sports generally in her immediate environment, while reiterating that development of sports is an all-inclusive affair that required support from government agencies, corporate organizations and well to do individuals in the society, charging parents to cooperate with the trainers.
The Oyo State Commissioner for Sports, Yomi Oke in his remark explained that it is the responsibility of the government to create an enabling environment for corporate organizations and private individuals to develop sports, saying that government has no business in running sports. He added that is why the state government empowered sports associations to be able to carry on with the responsibilities of running the sports in the state; the step that he said has been yielding result considering the outstanding performance of state’s athletes recorded at the recent various national events.
The stakeholders in attendance commended efforts of the Kayrom Lee boss for her efforts in ensuring that sports at the grassroots level are developed. They promised in their different capacity to support RACBAR Academy which is an initiative designed to assist the children of the poor, the less privilege that is endowed with sports’ talent to attain a greater height.
–Dare Adeniran
